


Destroyers

by NeoQwerty



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Canon-typical Slavery, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nerevar Is Branded By Fate, Nerevar's GHARTOKI are literally sigils on his palms, Pre-First Council (Elder Scrolls)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoQwerty/pseuds/NeoQwerty
Summary: Nerevar's childhood, when Mother takes him from Cyrodiil back to her homeland of Mereth, takes a turn for the worse.A clever Argonian whispers secrets of murder in his ears, recognizing the nature of the "curses" on the boy's hands, and teaches Nerevar how to survive in the land of the Chimer.
Relationships: Indoril Nerevar & Original Non-Binary Character





	Destroyers

**Author's Note:**

> Nerevar continuously misgenders his uncle's non-binary Saxhleel slave as female because they're androgynous with a slightly more feminine form. He also calls them slurs because he doesn't know better. He's 11, has never seen an Argonian in his life before, and no one corrects him so he just doesn't think anything of it.

When Mother tells him they're going back to his homeland, he shrugs, and follows. When she explains to him, gentle but stern, that he owes her brother respect, he nods. He expects this to be like with the Alessians, so he doesn't think much of it.

Until his mother's brother strikes him, and when he fights back, his mother agrees for him to be caned like the lizard-slave. They're not afraid of hurting him, as he naturally draws on his stars to heal him after his mother's brother is done. But he decides he doesn't like him, and he doesn't much like his mother, that she would forbid him to play with the loud and boisterous northmen-children, but she lets her brother strike him without giving him a weapon to fight back.

He grows by leaps and bounds in one year, eyes darker, more dangerous, and Horns-Broken-But-Never-The-Will smiles approvingly, tells him the stories of the native wamasu of Black Marsh. A creature that moves languid and placid on land, under observation, that disappears into the black murk of swamps, and comes to life as thunder and fury when no one sees it anymore. Stories of Sithis, the force behind the Void, the father of Lorkhan and Sheogorath and the husband that clingy little Mephala chases the favors and attention of with her kills of her nephews and nieces, the living races. The secret that Sithis is a cold being, but a being who accepts souls and annihilates them, sets them at peace where they otherwise live again and again, the pain of birth and life and death inevitable and cursed.

She strokes at his curse-marks with her scaled hands and smiles, her teeth a thousand ivory needles, and says that those marks are Sithis' favor, the same mark as Shadowscales. His nature is the art of destruction, of striking thunder and cleansing fire. He was born in love with the blade, from its sharp song to its deadly edge. The words make something inside him shiver, and he nods, slowly. He learns to take her advise, to be like those wamasu and those Shadowscales of hers; to hide himself and his nature under a cowed exterior, to nod and say quietly, "yes sir, no sir, yes mother, no mother", to hold himself low like a snake and pretend to be lesser.

But a part of him, as he grows older, begins to bend under the blows, under the weight of his own disguise. His identity ties itself so deeply into the marks on his hands and to his human eyes that he begins to wonder if he is even anything _more_ than fire and lightning and a blade with the eyes of the Chimer's enemies and oppressors and the curse of destruction. And finally he concludes that no, as far as the world thinks, all that he is is monstrous and destructive and unwanted.

When his mother finally cuts him free of her, his sole regret is that he can't take Horns-Broken with him. She smiles as he announces his departure, and she whispers to him, a snake hissing in his ear, "Worry not, Sithian child. You'll never see me again, but neither will you see your awful lout of an uncle. Go. Be free, and carve out your own destiny."

He only learns much later, when Almalexia enquires about his family to invite them formally to the wedding, that his uncle and mother died mere months after he left them, poisoned. He doesn't think on what must have happened-- _much_ \-- but an inappropriate smile draws a sharp crescent of a smile as he says, too lightly, "Such a shame."


End file.
